For Mahesh fans

Name : Aagadu
Cast : Mahesh Babu, Tamannaah and Sonu Sood
Direction : Sreenu Vaitla
Genre : Action drama
Rating : ***
Like : Mahesh Babu
UnLike : Very predictable

The scale is grandeur and in keeping with the reputation of the Prince. The promos show him dawn the robes of the lawman. A fan sitting next to me believes that this is going to be a hit. Yes given the star, it is the style quotient that is to be watched. The actor has built for himself over the years a niche space of style and class and yet held back with a huge connect with the masses.

The storyline does not bother too much to offer anything very novel or innovative. Shanker is an orphan who is picked up from the roads by an honest police officer Rajaram (Rajendra Prasad). However, things go awry when the cop’s genetic son kills a guy by accident. Shanker takes the blame and is sent to a borstal school. He grows up as the adventurous efficient honest, gutsy police officer (the ones you see only in our cinema) and encounter specialist Shanker (Mahesh). Given the task to do away with evil and the villains, he is posted at this new PS where he puts the local bootlegger (Prabhas Srinu), bookie (Raghu Babu) and peddler (Posani) in place. They are just the face of crime and he is to get to the root of the crimes.

Within five minutes of his entry you have heavy duty dialogues, shocker stunts and choreographed songs. He, also in a while, runs into Saroja (Tamannaah), the MD of Saroja Sweets, a local sweet vendor family run by brothers (Tanikella Bharani, Harsha Vardhan and Prithvi). When a local human rights activist (Bharat Reddy) is killed for his protest against the new Power Project, the battle lines are divided between the villain Damodar (Sonu Sood) and Shanker. The clarion call for revenge in the midst of the dust a din with near archived templates make up for the rest of the film that here wards is exclusively in the zone of violence, deceit and destruction. Punctuating it is a feeble wafer thin love story involving the lead pair, the emotional drama with the return of lost dad Raajaram, and his son (Ajay) and a dash of humour attributed to the entry of Brahmanandam as Delhi Suri. While the pre-interval script deals with the hero winning over the minor baddies and is thus light-hearted albeit formulistic, the latter part is familiar blood splashing. The filmmaker has all the time and decides to spend huge amount of raw stock running up for the near three hours of scheduled show timing. With the heavy cast in place, dosages of customary thrills, fights, one liners, comedies, dances (including the item number by Shruti Haasan), the task is only about tying up the loose end of this Friday edition of chor police. Sonu Sood is the main villain and you have the customary adrenaline pumped up scenes involving him and the hero. Giving him company as the corrupt police officer is Aashish Vidyarthi. On the law side of the fence are the likes of Rao Ramesh, Vennela Kishore, Brahmaji. Naseer plays a near comic role of a corrupt policeman. MS Narayana is the local Wikipedia.

Mahesh Babu ensures that he does nothing wrong. With a trim and propah screen presence he carries the film, with nothing new to add to his repertoire. Pleasing and cinematically heroic – strictly in keeping with the demands of the script. He works to present what he mouths in the course of the film: Attitude and Gratitude.

From the BO perspective, surely this ‘Aagadu’ is difficult to hold back.